


This Illuminated Life

by asuralucier



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: Artistic Medical License, Be Your Best Self, Christmas, Coffee, Family Feels, Finicky Charles, Hanukkah, Lonely Awkward Charles, M/M, Perceptive Teenager Raven, Slightly Grumpy Erik, Special Snowflake Logan, While You Were Sleeping AU, some mentions of drug use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-22 06:53:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17055227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asuralucier/pseuds/asuralucier
Summary: Alone at Christmas, lonely barista Charles is embroiled in a misunderstanding that might yet change his life.





	This Illuminated Life

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bettysofia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bettysofia/gifts).



> I hope this somewhat fulfills your prompt! I loved _While You Were Sleeping_ and was really happy to see someone request it. 
> 
> Heaps of thanks to @Gammarad for being such a discerning beta. All remaining mistakes are my own.

On a cold November morning, at exactly ten past eight, Charles Xavier falls in love with a man over a skinny vanilla latte. The cause of his infatuation starts innocently enough: 

“...Sorry, what’s your wi-fi password?” 

“Oh, it’s,” Charles rubs his cheeks and then decides to blame the cold if the guy asks. It is pretty fucking cold, even if Charles is currently basking in central heating and awash in the smell of a Jamaican single roast. “We don’t really have one. If you’re signed up to the Cloud, you can access the internet that way, but that’s as part of the station’s wi-fi rather than ours. You know, the shop’s. Our manager’s really skint about the wi-fi. He says it takes away from the coffee… I shouldn’t have told you that.” 

“Don’t worry about it,” and the man smiles. The curve of his mouth is winsome, wide, and inviting and Charles is just in _love_. “Our secret.” 

 

Charles doesn’t learn the guy’s name for a long time, but he likes to think himself as a keen observer of people. Skinny Vanilla Latte Man Who Keeps His Secret About the Wi-fi isn’t the exception to this rule as much as an standout example of Charles’ dedication to his craft. And it is a craft, rather than something cheaper like a hobby. Charles doesn’t believe in hobbies, if only because hobbies are so ordinary, so fickle. Something you could pick up and drop like any old thing. Like chess, though that is a complicated game, even if Charles is good at it. 

So Charles doesn’t learn the man’s name, but he contents himself with details that are even better. Such as the fact that the man wears cufflinks on Mondays but not necessarily on Fridays. And they don’t exactly look like cheap cufflinks either. He nearly always carries a briefcase and enjoys, even if he doesn’t look like a man with a lot of time, his cup of coffee while reading the morning paper. Charles didn’t know anyone still read the paper in its physical form. Charles does, but he doesn’t count.

“I can’t believe you read the paper every morning,” Charles says, after spending about two weeks building up his courage. 

“I know right? It’s a horrible way to start my day.” The man shrugs with what Charles has come to think of as the man’s trademark, winning smile. “But I always think to myself, hey. It can’t get any worse, and that’s kind of a comfort in itself in a weird way. Do you know what I mean?” 

 

Charles is in love, but he’s not under any delusions about what that then must mean, for the rest of his life. The rest of his life is simply what it is, that is, not much. 

When Charles isn’t working, he goes home to a studio flat in Williamsburg that is just about large enough to legally house a hamster. And yet the place still seems to be ostensibly big and lonely in the evenings. On the weekends, Charles dutifully drives up to North Salem to visit his mother, who lives in a retirement home that was originally some sort of stately home. You could still see the remnants of stately if you tried, but Charles is pretty sure nobody does try, really. 

Most of the time, Sharon Xavier doesn’t remember him, but on the small nightstand beside her bed still stands a framed photo of her only son, Charles Francis, shaking hands with the vice chancellor of Oxford University the day he received his doctorate in genetic engineering. Next to the photo, is usually a vase full of fresh flowers. Sharon likes violets and Charles is gratified most of the time that someone remembers. 

 

“Hey! Stop!” 

Charles comes to, and his ears fill up with the blaring of car horns and shouts. 

“...What the fuck do you think you’re _doing_?” 

Then Charles sees the man lying flat on the edge of the sidewalk. He’s dressed well -- and then when Charles sees the man’s cufflinks, that’s when his heart drops to the soles of his feet. Suddenly, it feels like he can’t stand to take another step forward. 

“I didn’t…” 

“Fucking hell, you must be suicidal,” says someone else.

Charles thinks that he is, vaguely, but he’d never really meant to advertise the fact in the middle of Amsterdam when everyone’s in a rush to get somewhere. The idea of suicide is self-centered enough as it is. But he pushes that thought out of his mind and kneels down next to the man. And it is the Skinny Latte man, like Charles had known all along, because he is careful about keeping track of these things. “Oh, shit.” 

“Move aside, please.” A hand is on Charles’ arm. He blinks and recognizes the woman speaking to him to be wearing a paramedic’s uniform. “...Sir?” 

Charles opens his mouth and no sound comes out. Another passerby, a man who looks thoroughly unimpressed by the scene (possibly because it is New York and something like this happens more often than you would think) speaks for him. “...He ran out after him --” here, he jabs a finger rather unkindly towards Charles, “when he wandered out in the middle of the street, there.” 

“Um,” Charles says. It’s true, but again, it feels unkind. 

Several more people have arrived, with an ambulance and a couple of people are now loading the man onto a stretcher. The paramedic is looking after Charles again, “Maybe you should come too. Do you know him?” 

“After a fashion,” Charles says. “It’s a bit complicated.” 

She gives him a bit of a pitying look and then shrugs. “Believe it or not, I know what you mean. Come on, I’ll even let you have a puff of the good oxygen.” 

 

After “a puff of the good oxygen,” Charles does feel better. But he also does feel bad about himself because the man he is in love with is in a coma indefinitely. The doctor, after wheeling the man off to the ER, informs Charles in no uncertain terms that “it looks bad” but it’s also “not as bad as it seems.” 

“But we should probably still inform his next of kin. You know him, yes? Emma says you know them. Can’t you give them a call?”

“Um,” Charles says. “Their numbers are all in my phone and I um, left my phone.” 

(Charles will swear up and down later, much later, when he is alone by himself with a dram of whiskey for company that that was as much of the truth as he’d been able to tell. The fact remains that he didn’t have his phone on him that day, and because of his phone’s absence, no one will ever know if certain numbers were in existence on said phone. It’s his story, and Charles is damn well going to stick to it.) 

But the doctor doesn’t question him any further (no doubt the man has better things to do) and someone must have called the Skinny Vanilla Latte’s next of kin because what seems to Charles like a whole army spills into the ER waiting room. It’s only like four people, a mother, a father, a teenaged girl, and a man whose being there is what clocks Charles on to the fact that this must be the man’s _family_. It’s odd because this man and Skinny Vanilla Latte have very little in common since this man is wearing a deep frown that can’t be mistaken for much else. But Charles could tell, that if the man would smile, they would look nearly exactly the same. 

The word (and the concept) of family makes Charles a little bit ill and he tries to hide in the corner beside a drab-looking plant. 

“That man over there accompanied Logan to the hospital,” said a doctor, not the same one as before. He jerks his chin towards Charles, and Charles, left with nowhere else to hide, takes in a deep breath and stands. 

“Um, hi,” Charles says. He doesn’t know what to say after that because a) he doesn’t know these people from Adam, and b) the last thing he wants to do is to admit to this altogether wholesome family who, except the man with the frown look like they’re straight out of a Hallmark card. 

“I just can’t believe that this happened to Logan,” the mother frets. “And so close to Christmas! Who’s going to help me eat all the latkes?”

“Edie, you say that like the rest of us don’t eat,” the father cajoles.

“So you’re...not worried that Logan’s in a coma,” the man deadpans. 

“Oh, but Erik, sweetheart, you heard the doctor! These things take time, and I’m glad that he’s finally getting some rest. He works so much.” 

“Hi.” It’s the girl who finally speaks to him. “Let me guess, my brother just walked out in the middle of the road with his head buried in a paper? He does that a lot.” 

“Does he?” Charles blinks. “But doesn’t he hate reading the paper?” 

She shrugs and pulls a face. “He says he does. But Logan is addicted to the news.”

“I’m sure heroin addicts would say the same thing about heroin, that they hate it,” Charles says. He regrets the words almost immediately.

“Well, that escalated quickly,” the girl says gamely, peering at him up and down again. “Who are you anyway, Logan’s new fling?” 

Charles stares at her, and then privately decides that he doesn’t want to disappoint them by saying no. After all, the family looks like they’ve had enough bad news for one day. But there’s something about the way she says ‘fling’ that deflates Charles because nobody in love wants to hear the word fling. But if the man -- that is, _Logan_ (his name even suits him, but that’s something Charles will think about, later. Right now he needs his wits tight about him) has flings rather than anything more serious on the dating spectrum, then it’s not like his one lie can hurt. 

Even though the lie is a pretty big one, as far as lies are concerned. 

“I, um. Something like that.” 

“Really?” She arches an eyebrow at him. “No offense, but you don’t seem like his type exactly.” 

In another universe, possibly even in a parallel universe where Charles had worked up the courage to ask for Logan’s number, or better yet, to scribble his number on the bottom of Logan’s order, this might not have been true and Charles would have put up a good fight. The numbers thing was something else that they weren’t meant to do, because Charles’ boss, a disastrously unimaginative corporate type named Sebastian Shaw, was the opinion that flirting was yet another activity that detracted from good coffee. People tended to ignore him and do what they wanted anyway. Alex, one of Charles’ co-workers who was probably half his age, was a particularly bad offender and was going to get fired any day now for handing free drinks to “girls with A+ tits.” 

Instead, Charles says, “...If he has flings, wouldn’t it also makes sense that he’s still finding his type?” 

She shrugs, “Okay, that’s a nice save. I’ll give you that. How long have you been seeing him?” 

Charles does some quick calculations and decides to generously count their courtship from the time Logan asked for access to their nonexistent wi-fi. “Before Thanksgiving. Maybe like, ten days before? Not that I’m counting or anything.” 

The girl whistles. “Hey, that’s not too bad. It’s probably some kind of record.” 

“Raven, stop bullying the poor guy,” says the other man, Erik. 

“I wasn’t bullying him, I was asking pertinent questions.” She frowns. 

“Ask your pertinent questions later, Raven,” says the mother, Edie. “The poor man must be traumatized.” She places a hand on Charles’ arm. “We didn’t catch your name, sorry?” 

“I’m Charles,” Charles says, and he’s only moderately surprised he doesn’t make up some sort of name to go along with everything else he has already made up. He wonders if his name, Charles, passes muster. The story goes that Sharon had become pregnant with him not long after finishing a tome on Charlemagne. He thinks about telling them that, but decides against it. 

 

The Lehnsherrs introduce themselves as Jacob, Edie, Erik, and Raven, and Edie insists that Charles joins them for dinner. Charles thinks about the tupperware of leftover Chinese in his fridge and agrees. 

They go to a steakhouse in Brooklyn that’s old-school Italian and this doesn’t seem like the sort of place that Logan would like, either, but Charles has always known that he’s missing a lot of information. 

Because Charles is the rare sort of person who understands social context without partaking in it, it’s easy to pick out from bits and pieces of their conversation that Logan is some sort of correspondent for a magazine that’s not quite _National Geographic_ but close enough, and that he spent last year cavorting with jaguars in a rainforest in Paraguay only to come home to New York and be (almost) run over by a truck. 

Charles winces, but he is able to volunteer information about the magazine (which he doesn’t read, but he’ll go buy a copy from somewhere as soon as he’s able to get away from dinner) that mostly falls in line with Logan’s interests, and everyone looks impressed. 

“See?” Jacob grins at his wife. “I told you our Logan’s not just a pretty face.” 

“I _never_ said that,” Edie declares. “I just said I wish Logan’s paramours could take more of an interest in his work! It is interesting work.” 

Charles coughs. 

Erik says, “Mom, I don’t think that word means what you think it means. Anyway,” he pushes his chair back to stand. “I’m going out for a cigarette.” 

 

When Charles asks for one of Erik’s cigarettes, the man looks at him up and down, and then he shrugs and hands over a cigarette and presses a lit lighter to its end before lighting up himself. 

“Sorry if Mom offended you with the paramour thing. She keeps learning new words from her TV shows, which isn’t exactly --” Erik says. “But I can understand why she thinks that, you know. We’ve not ever met anyone Logan dates. Mostly because they’re abroad, unavailable, it’s always something.” Erik inhales deeply and Charles catches himself admiring the line of his jaw, only because Logan and Erik are brothers and nearly share a jawline. 

“Um,” Charles says. He hasn’t had a cigarette since Oxford, but the gesture is familiar and habitual and he is grateful for the honest way the nicotine fills his lungs. 

“ -- I mean. Sorry.” Erik seems to shake himself. “I know you’re seeing him.” 

“I like learning things about him,” Charles says. “Even the things that…”

He doesn’t quite know how to finish that sentence. 

Erik looks at him again. “Where’s that accent from?” 

Charles opens his mouth and closes it again, “Oxford, England. But I am actually from around here. New York, here.” 

“You’re from Brooklyn?” Erik looks at him a touch disbelievingly. “Okay, don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re nowhere near stuck up enough. I bet you even let people call you Chuck.” 

“I thought Brooklyn was just hipster,” Charles says. “And. No one calls me me Chuck. I think I tried to punch the last person who did.” 

Erik seems like he wants to laugh, but doesn’t, “You’re clearly not from here. Did it work?”

“What, the punch?” Charles shrugs, “It was a possibly traumatic event that I no longer remember.”

“I bet.” 

“You don’t know me.” Charles says vaguely. “But fine, if you really want to know -- I was born North Salem. Kind of up. Don’t remember much of that, either.” He gestures, just as vaguely. 

Erik says, “No kidding. Mom and Dad have their house in Scarsdale.” 

“I’ve driven past there loads,” Charles smiles with half his mouth. “...He never mentioned.” 

“Yeah, well...” Erik shrugs, and the movement is brusque and not too nice. “That sounds like him. Logan’s always thought New York was small. I mean, who the fuck thinks that?” 

“I do?” Charles offers. “But everyone’s invisible here, too, in this city. And just when you think someone sees you, they don’t really. They see someone else.” He shakes himself and sucks so hard on the end of his cigarette that he has to cough loudly into his sleeve. “Jesus. I’m sorry. -- I actually have to go. Now. I’ve got a -- thing.” Hastily, Charles reaches for his wallet and takes out a wad of bills. It occurs to him that running away from dinner isn’t the smartest thing to do, but maybe money will make up for it. 

Erik stares down at the money. “What’s this?” 

“What I owe for dinner,” Charles says, desperate enough to get away that it’s probably seeping into this semblance of normality he is trying so hard to maintain. He is probably going to crack any minute now. 

“You don’t owe nearly that much,” Erik says. “Besides, it’ll offend Mom and Dad. Look, I’m sorry if my sister was a bit hard on you in there. She’s kind of...like that. She’s seventeen.” 

“Well, that explains it,” Charles says. “I don’t mind, really. It’s nice that you guys are close.” 

“Come back in,” Erik gestures towards him. “We don’t bite, promise.” 

“That...was not on the list of things I thought you were, you, plural.” But Charles is beginning to see, that getting away early by such measures was going to cost him dearly. He might be lying to the Lehnsherrs, but it was true that Charles didn’t mean them any harm and even wanted them to like him. That was not such a bad thing, was it?

“So come back inside,” Erik says again. “Have a coffee or something. It won’t take long. And for God’s sake, put the money away.” 

 

Despite trading a lab coat for a barista’s apron, Charles really does enjoy coffee. You don’t get through years and years of soul-sucking postgraduate work crawling through twelve-hour days without caffeine. 

“Maybe it’s just me,” Raven nibbles delicately on her cuticles, and no amount of glaring from Edie could cure the habit, apparently. “But you’re like, too good for coffee, Charles. Chuck.” 

“Charles,” Charles says. “Nobody’s too good for coffee. You know there is actual science behind how coffee is made. Like from when it flowers to when it ends up in your cup of dark roast in the morning.” The truth is, no one else much cares for the process, but it’s the process that fascinates Charles. It’s the process that damn well lets him live. “I have a certificate for writing a paper on it.” Not so much a paper as a PowerPoint to directors at a regional conference, but Charles is aware now, that he has to show a very particular version of himself, and all in all, the idea of giving a paper just sounds much better. 

Erik says, “So you...just, I don’t know, sell coffee?” 

But there’s something in Erik’s voice, something that’s different than the skepticism that is at the forefront of his sister’s. Something that Charles loathes to address, but he’ll go with it, just the same. “I didn’t used to. But I do that now. And I’m pretty damn good at coffee. I like being good at what I do.” 

 

Later, Charles lies on Alex’s couch, smokes the kid’s weed, and confesses his sins. They are friends, after a fashion, even if Alex will frequently opine that Charles is _old_ and _boring_ and thoroughly _unadventurous_.

“I mean,” Alex sucks deeply from a blunt and blows smoke into Charles’ face, “You like the guy, Erik, right?” 

“ _Logan_ ,” Charles corrects him sharply. “Erik’s his brother. You know, the conscious one. I thought I’d made that pretty clear.” 

“I mean, dude,” Alex says feelingly. “They both sound kind of hot.” 

Charles goes the shade of beetroot, and takes refuge in the blunt that Alex passes back to him, “You’ve got like all the girls.”

“It was just an opinion,” Alex says. “And just that, you know, I don’t agree with -- Erik. I think you’re stuck up. Not that you shouldn’t be. I mean, you did get the Genius Grant and now you’re stuck in the grind with the rest of us little people. Don’t think you can get any less stuck up than that. So you know,” he says, flopping a hand vaguely in Charles’ direction, “ _good_ on you.” 

By Alex standards, this is considered a very encouraging speech. But it doesn’t make Charles feel any better. 

What’s surprising about Alex is that he’d recognized Charles’ name off a list of recent recipients of the MacArthur Genius Grant off their website. Alex had downplayed it (“played it cool”) and made it seemed like Xavier was an uncommon enough name so that was why he tracked onto Charles’ name. The rest was easy, since Charles didn’t particularly enjoy talking about his research and outside of trolling the website to seem smarter than he really was, Alex didn’t seem that interested, either. 

(For the record, Charles doesn’t think Alex is nearly as stupid as he is keen to make himself sound. But it never did seem like the right time to probe the topic.) 

“I don’t want to be lying to the Lehnsherrs,” Charles presses, at the same time retreating to familiar territory. “They seem really nice.” 

“Yeah, and that’s why you _shouldn’t_ tell them,” Alex says. “You’ve already lied to them, you might as well follow through, and it’s not as if you’re...I don’t know, planning some sort of heist. You know, like in the movies or something. You’re just a awkward dude that’s sort of made a mistake. If you really really are worried about it, maybe break up with Logan for moving too fast when he wakes up.”

“That’s terrible,” Charles winces. 

“But it’s the truth, kind of. You can’t have _everything_ you want, Charles,” Alex heaves himself up from his position on the couch. It’s overstuffed, but comfortable. “Do you want some coffee or not?” 

Charles finds he can’t really argue with that. 

 

The next morning, Charles goes to the hospital armed with a bouquet of lilies. It’s one of his rare days off so why not engage in some well-deserved self-flagellation? It’s easy enough to find Logan’s room, where the man is still unconscious and a nurse is fussing at his monitor. 

She asks him, “You family?” 

Charles says, “I’m the boyfriend,” and thinks that she ought to know right off the bat he’s telling a bald-faced lie. 

The nurse clicks her tongue sympathetically, “It’ll be all right. I’ll give you some time.” 

It’s still early, a bit before eight, around the time when Logan would saunter into the coffeeshop with his paper and ask for a skinny vanilla latte. Charles has a latte with him, bought from a vending machine downstairs rather than lovingly hand-made. But Charles thinks it’s the thought that counts. After placing the lilies on the wobbly stand beside Logan’s bed, he pulls himself up a chair and heaves a big sigh.

“Hi,” Charles says very softly after a few beeps have passed. “I’m Charles. You come into my coffeeshop every morning, but really, we don’t know each other. I did find an internet archive for your magazine, though. I’m making my way through all your articles. I noticed that you mentioned lilies sometimes when you describe a place so that’s why I think you might like these,” a nod towards the flowers. “I probably should have brought a vase, too. Isn’t it funny? I notice little details all the time, but then I forget the big picture. I do that a lot. -- Anyway.” He inhales again. “That’s what I wanted to say to you before I come clean to your family. I’m going to do it. Any minute now, someone’s going to show up and I’ll tell them that you saved my life and have sort of made me a little less suicidal, but we don’t know each other.” 

“I _knew_ it,” a voice sounds behind him and Charles nearly falls out of his chair. He clears his throat and stands, trying to wipe both the guilt and the surprise off his face and probably failing at both.

Raven strides into her brother’s hospital room and tosses her coat over the back of Charles’ chair. She is holding a tupperware container. 

“I knew there was something funny about you.” 

“Um,” Charles says. “There are probably more than a few things that are funny about me.” He glances between her and Logan. “...Are you going to tell on me?” 

She rolls her eyes, “How old even _are_ you?” 

“Thirty-three,” Charles says. 

“I bet you liked to tattle on people while you were younger.” Raven smiles at him, not very nicely. 

“Maybe.” Charles shrugs helplessly.

“That’s a yes.” Raven unclicks the container, and Charles immediately smells something warm and slightly fishy. “...Want some?” 

“What -- what is it?” 

“It’s latkes.” Raven takes one and bites into it, presumably to put Charles at ease about it being edible. These are salmon. They’re Logan’s favorite.” 

Charles looks at the tupperware full of latkes and wills himself to tell a lie. Aside from the fact that he dislikes fish, the latkes do look very well made, and had they not had fish in them, he might have quite enjoyed them. A little guiltily, he says, “I don’t exactly like fish.” 

“So,” she says, chewing. “Not his type.” 

“So this is the hill that we die on? That I don’t like fish?” 

“Well, I haven’t decided whether or not I’ll tell on you.” Raven looks at him. 

“You can tell on me,” Charles hedges. “I mean, I’d appreciate a five minute head-start before you do.”

“That’s pretty pathetic.” 

“So is...this,” Charles points out. He is pretty sure he is not winning any points but honesty has always been a weakness of his. Alex thinks so, too. 

Raven swallows her bite of latke and makes to put down the container next to Charles’ bouquet of lilies. She picks at a petal. “He likes these. How’d you know?” 

“Lucky guess,” Charles shrugs. He might be honest, but he is not an idiot. 

Raven fixes him with a long stare; as if she’s deciding something, pinning it all down, “...You know what. I’m not going to tell on you. Mom really likes you. Or, if she doesn’t like you, there’s no telling how relieved she is that you’re it. She talked about you all night after you left dinner.” 

“She did?” 

“You should have seen Erik’s face,” Raven mimes an explosion with her hands. “He looked like his head was about to explode.” 

“Ah?” Causing someone’s head to explode is never a good thing but Charles doesn’t have much of a choice, does he? “...Do I have to worry about him telling on me?” 

“Erik’s not nearly as astute as I am.” Raven claps him on the shoulder; the gesture is nearly friendly. “He’s probably just kicking himself that he didn’t meet you first. You’re _his_ type. That is, quiet, nerdy, sad, and possibly delusional.” 

Before Charles could ask for clarification on that point (it seemed to him a necessary thing to do), Jacob and Edie Lehnsherr burst in the room and Raven, with a bit of a sideways smile, let go of Charles’ shoulder. “ -- And you’re up, champ.” 

“Oh, _Charles_ ,” Edie is the first to spot the lilies. “Did you bring these? Logan _loves_ these. But of course you know that.” 

Raven starts to cough, but then she holds herself together and moves to stuff her mouth with more latkes. Possibly as a favor to Charles, as to not give him away. 

“I thought he might like them,” Charles demurs, looking down at his shoes. “I hope you don’t mind that I’ve come to visit, um. I just had a day off, and thought. Just in case he wakes up.” 

“Our Logan is a lucky man,” Jacob says with a grin. “He’s probably luckier than any man has a right to be. Did he ever tell you about the time he was nearly mauled by a tiger in India?” 

“Yeah,” Raven says. “He’s really paying it forward with this coma.”

“No,” Charles says. “We er, haven’t gotten that far, um. Yet.” 

 

Through no fault of his own, Charles finds himself whisked off in the Lehnsherr family car, which is a very nice blue Sedan up to Scarsdale. While crawling through the pre-lunch traffic, Edie tells Charles that they used to drive a minivan, but now with both boys all grown up, having a large car seemed silly. 

“Mom’s speaking like Erik and Logan have just left home.” Raven ribs Charles helpfully in the ribs in the backseat. “But don’t be too scared, they’re mostly housetrained.” 

“ _Raven_ ,” Edie intones, exasperated but amused. Then she changes the subject and looks at Charles through the rearview mirror. “What about your family, Charles? Has Logan met them? I’m sure this all feels a bit sudden.” 

“My mother lives in North Salem,” Charles says, after a pause stretched just short of awkward. “So actually, kind of near Scarsdale. But no, Logan hasn’t met her. It’s not his fault, I’m equally bad at doing this sort of thing.” And that feels a bit _too_ honest, but Raven gives him another one of her squeezes, a gesture that Charles is beginning to read as encouraging. 

“Do you have any siblings?” Jacob asks.

“I wish I did,” and that is a truth that Charles doesn’t mind telling. “But no, it’s just me. I used to be quite close with my father. He taught me everything I ever knew. But he’s...he’s left us now, for a couple of years.” 

“Oh, you poor thing,” Edie says. 

 

Edie, Jacob, and Raven live in a Tudor-style house built in the early twentieth century with five bedrooms and four toilets. The house makes up part of a cul-de-sac, snugly hidden behind trees that seem especially planted to ensure someone’s privacy, even if the autumn leaves on the branches of the trees look just about on their last legs. 

Inside, the house smells fresh and warm and not too strongly of fish. Charles spots the Christmas tree with white and blue fairy lights, and then the menorah on the mantelpiece. Edie tells him that the menorah migrates into kitchen when it comes time to light another candle in the evening. There are cards tacked on both sides of the living room door and Charles peers at some of the cards with interest. 

Jacob jokes during the grand tour of the house that they’ve downsized on the car but not the house. It’s just something about it -- “Probably just the sheer number of diapers or antiques still around here that I can’t bear to part with. It’s funny what sticks to you.” 

Charles agrees. The whole of the house does look very tastefully decorated. Not so much magazine perfect, but with enough to know that the people who live in this house like where they are, and more importantly, each other. There are pictures everywhere. Raven’s first tricycle; five-and-ten-year-old Logan and Erik holding a puppy, some sort of smallish terrier.

Jacob shows him Logan’s old room, since converted into a family study with an old overstuffed armchair in the corner, and then Erik’s old room, since stripped of the man’s belongings since he’s moved out but the bed’s still the same. But recently, they’ve bought a new mattress to be kinder to the guests. 

“But honestly, we might as well call this Erik’s room. He almost never goes back to his place in the city.” Jacob laughs. “But I like having him around, you know what I mean? It’s difficult when we don’t know where Logan is half the time. Do you think it’s something you’ll get used to? I think it’s got to take its toll on any partner.” 

Charles laughs, immediately dislikes the way it sounds, and wipes at his mouth. “...I’m trying not to think about that.” 

“Good man, it’s the holidays, after all,” Jacob says. 

Charles is not really a holidays person. Last Christmas, he’d spent it alone in his apartment after grimacing his way through a holiday party put together by the staff at the home up in North Salem and exactly no one wanted to be there. The smell of death, oddly mingled with the sharp scent of cheap plasticky evergreen was something he could go a year and then some without smelling. 

“...What’s everyone doing in my room?” 

Charles whirls around to see Erik, red-faced from recently braving cold coming up to the stop of the stairs. The man is still wearing a dark winter coat and bundled up in a cozy-looking maroon-colored scarf. He is holding a mug in each hand and hands one to Charles. “Guests first.” 

“I was just showing Charles around,” Jacob says. “We ran into him at the hospital. -- Here, Erik. You keep that. I can get my own downstairs.” 

Charles looks down into the mug. The liquid is golden-brown, and a piece of star anise, along with a piece of orange peel floating in it, “Smells delicious, what is this?” 

“Mom’s famous buttered rum cider,” Erik says. “It’s nice to see you again.” 

“You too.” Charles doesn’t know why he’s remembering this now, but it makes his cheeks go red, when he recalls Raven telling him he’s just Erik’s type. Sometimes, Charles certainly doesn’t understand the things that he is driven to do, but he doesn’t like to think of himself as fickle. “And um, nice room.” 

Erik shrugs and sips his drink, “It’s been redecorated; used to be more embarrassing.” 

Charles looks into the room again. The room is, if nothing else, inoffensive. A bed, a dresser, a painting that looks to be a passable Klint reproduction. 

“What did it used to look like?” 

“Well,” Erik points and Charles follows his finger to the far wall, “that entire wall over there used to be covered in posters of Andrei Tarkovsky, Sergei Eisenstein, all the greats. I think the parents were just relieved in the end that I wasn’t into posters of pinup girls or something more...offensive.” 

“I can see you have your type,” Charles says dryly. “Do you work in film, now?” 

“I run my dad’s antique store in the middle of town. Business is good, if only because.” Erik says. His lips twist, as if this is something of a sore subject. “He’s due to retire soon. Or, at least Mom wants him to.” 

“But on the weekends? I know a lot of people who do film on the weekends,” Charles says. 

“I’m here, most of the time,” Erik says. “I don’t mind. Raven doesn’t help around the house all that much.” 

“Hey,” Raven’s voice says from downstairs somewhere. “I resent that.” 

 

Charles leaves Scarsdale stuffed with roast chicken, goat-cheese babkas, and more than his share of warm chocolate gelt cookies. Apparently everyone in the house has outgrown the cookies, but nostalgia strikes every year like clockwork. Dessert is assembled right after the chicken, in a well-practiced sort of Lehnsherr assembly line. Charles is given Logan’s usual job, which is to press a chocolate coin down onto each cookie before they go into the oven to bake. The table has a place set for Logan, whose absence, at least to Charles, is profound. 

Erik offers to drive him, and doesn’t take no for an answer. Everyone else looks properly horrified when Charles proposes he might take a bus back into the city instead. 

“Okay,” Erik says as he follows the crawl of the evening traffic back onto the freeway, “now I know you’re really not from here. Nobody in their right mind takes the bus. The metro is there if you’re that desperate.”

“In my defense,” Charles says, shrugging one shoulder, “buses weren’t too terrible in Oxford and were very student friendly. I took one nearly every weekend into London, an hour tops.” 

“Sounds like fun,” Erik says. He makes a gesture towards the front of Charles’ seat, and Charles opens the glove compartment to find a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. Charles lights one for Erik first and passes that one over. Then he lights one for himself.

“I guess it was,” Charles admits. “Looking back, I don’t remember much of it.” 

Erik rolls down the window on both sides of the car and takes a long drag from his cigarette. He keeps his eyes on the road and doesn’t look at Charles, “...Why’d you come back?” 

“A question for the ages.” Charles laughs, in spite of himself. “No, actually, it’s not really. Oxford is a place too, you know. Not so good things happen to people over there like anyplace else. Once I saw someone’s spleen rupture during a rugby match.” Even the memory of it, and only having been distantly involved as a spectator, did something funny to his guts. 

“Ouch.”

“Exactly,” then Charles shakes himself. “I came back for my mother. She got ill and, and she’s in a home because I can’t. But I try to see her. Do you know what I mean?” 

“Not to be patronizing, but yes,” Erik glances over at him for just a moment. “I know it doesn’t seem like it, but the world nearly ended when Logan said he wanted to be a journalist who could travel all around the world and see new places. I don’t think Mom spoke to him for like a week. Dad didn’t say anything, but he did go and passive-aggressively take the ‘S’ off of Lehnsherr & Sons.” 

“But they seem so…” Charles trails off. 

“Loving, supportive?” Erik finishes for him; it’s worth noting that he doesn’t sound amused, but he’s not exactly bitter, either. “Well, he’s their kid, their oldest. They were never going to hold out for too long. And besides, they like it now, saying, look at my son who writes for a magazine. It...also helps that Raven is spoiled as anything and will never move out.” 

“Yeah, well,” Charles leans his cheek against his hand, “Imagine how they’d look if they’d say, look at my son, this filmmaker with a great artistic vision. Not too bad, is it?” 

Erik doesn’t say anything. 

 

Against his better judgement, Charles invites Erik up for a cup of coffee, but as soon as the man starts peering around the place with one of those gazes, he regrets it. But that isn’t anything new. 

“...I’m surprised there’s not a photo of you two anywhere,” Erik says. He takes a seat on Charles’ couch, which is covered in a colorful afghan when it doesn’t have to be pulled out as his bed, and is not too embarrassing. 

“That’s on me mostly,” Charles says, trying unsuccessfully to hide in his kitchenette while he heats up the kettle. “I dislike having my picture taken.” Although Charles has never taken a picture of Logan, he has by now scoured the Internet for the guy, and Logan even manages to look handsome and friendly in the photograph accompanying his byline. 

“Why?” 

Even from where he is trying to make himself small and hidden, Charles can feel the heat of the other man’s gaze. He sighs. “I just...don’t? I always think that I look a bit small in pictures. Not myself, somehow.” Charles is reminded of that every time he gets an urge to look at the MacArthur website, but now, it’s less and less. It’s an old picture that they have of him, and his tie must have been tied too tight that day, because Charles’ head had felt and looked bloated. He was, thankfully, no longer getting calls asking for an update on his life. 

“Anyway...coffee?” Charles is keen to change the subject while he still has hospitality to hide behind. 

“Please.” 

“I’ve only got a French press,” Charles says somewhat apologetically. “So it’s not horribly fancy. You’re welcome to look at what I’ve got though, and pick something you like.” He has a drawer especially dedicated to coffee, though most of what he has is unopened. He does live alone, after all. 

“I have never seen anyone belittle a French press as not fancy,” Erik remarks, his mouth quirking a little to one side. He gets up from his perch on the couch and Charles can feel him studying the contents of the drawer intently. “And, not to mention, you can probably open your own coffee museum with all this.” 

“There’s one in Leipzig,” Charles says. “Doubt I’d measure up, even though it reportedly isn’t great. Besides, Xavier’s Coffee Museum. Doesn’t really roll off the tongue, does it? -- Why are you looking at me like that?” 

Now, it’s Erik’s turn to look away, but there’s nothing embarrassed about his quickness and his sudden unwillingness to look in Charles’ direction, “Nothing. It’s just. I don’t know what to make of you, you know?” 

“Not really,” Charles says. “You make that sound like a bad thing.” 

“It is and it isn’t,” Erik shrugs. “It’s whatever you make it. Right, all this choice is making me dizzy, maybe it’s better that you pick one.” 

 

Charles ends up making them both cups of slightly-strong Americano from a bag of strong-smelling Arabica beans grown in Brazil. It doesn’t take long for a spiced, warm aroma to waft throughout the small apartment and they sit shoulder to shoulder on the couch. 

“You really know your stuff,” Erik says. “I’m betting my brother really enjoys his morning cup of joe.” 

“I didn’t know people still said that, cup of joe,” Charles says. “I thought it was just something that people wrote in a picture book. It’s where I first saw it, anyway.” 

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah.” Charles has to think about it for a minute, and then the quote comes to him nearly naturally, “...Mr. Mongoose drank a big hearty cup of joe before he left for work at the Museum every Monday. Or...something like that. I don’t know why I still remember. I’m always remembering strange things like that.” 

“Mr. Mongoose,” Erik’s lips twitch again. “What a name.” 

“It’s not as if I wrote the damn thing. I don’t even remember the title,” Charles shrugs. “...Want a refill? There’s a bit left.” 

 

“And,” Charles pushes his bishop forward, “...I think that’s checkmate.” 

“You think,” Erik says, as he stares evenly at the chessboard. It’s an old travel set that sits slightly wonky on the low table in front of the couch and black is missing a rook. They’re making do with a penny. “You know, Charles, you don’t have to be so nice to me. It’s checkmate.” 

“You never know,” Charles shrugs grandly. 

Erik looks at him for a brief moment and starts gathering up the pieces. First the blacks and then the whites. 

“I should go,” Erik says, but he doesn’t stand until a minute or two afterwards, when the chess set is packed up and he doesn’t seem to have another excuse in mind. 

“I bet someone’s missing you,” Charles says, partially in a bid to imply that Erik can indeed get going without feeling too bad, but at the same time, he wonders if he hasn’t just gone and made things even more awkward. But it’s not so far a stretch, to imagine for Erik someone prim and probably only slightly less clever sitting on a couch somewhere else. 

“I wish,” Erik gestures with one hand. “I have something to confess. I was only using you so I could go back and sleep in my own room in the city. I don’t even have a studio. They all know, and they find it ridiculous that I don’t want to sleep in my old bedroom.” 

“It’s not as if this is all cracked up to be,” Charles says. He’s already dreading the minute when Erik will walk out the door. He can’t explain it. “I can -- um, make more coffee.” 

“But you shouldn’t,” Erik shakes his head. And then he seems to stop himself, “...You going to be okay?” 

“Fine,” Charles says, a touch too quickly. “I’m fine. I’m going to be fine.” 

Charles waits by the window until Erik’s car pulls away from the curb.

 

“...So you didn’t kiss,” Alex winces, as if he’s suffering acutely from secondhand embarrassment. 

“So we didn’t kiss,” Charles echoes, and wonders why the sentiment sounds absurd, even though it’d seemed perfectly sensible at the time. “I’m supposed to be in love with Logan.” Logan, who, the last time Charles checked, was still in a very peaceful coma but someone else was drinking the skinny Vanilla lattes that Charles still brought to his room like clockwork. Maybe it was Raven, maybe it was a ghost. “You don’t have to say it like that.” 

“I’m just saying.”

“You’re saying what, exactly?” 

“Not to be gay or anything, but you do seem happier.” Alex shrugs, as if to punctuate for himself the ephemeral nature of his words. “And that’s not a bad thing.” 

“I’m just.” 

Charles doesn’t know the rest of that sentence, but he’s saved by the bell, as it were, as the soft ringing of Christmas bells (yet another ingenious invention of Sebastian Shaw’s) announces a new customer. Things are always a bit quiet in the run up to Christmas proper, and Charles doesn’t mind. He does, however, mind the fact that the customer is so Erik-shaped, that it’s almost uncanny.

The guy even _sounds_ like Erik, “...So you _do_ make coffee.” 

“Um, yes?” 

Alex leans his elbow just so on Charles’ shoulder. “Among other things.” 

“Like what?” 

“Like nothing.” Charles shakes off Alex’s arm and goes to stand behind one of the industrial sized coffee makers because he really needs to hide somewhere. “Can I get you anything?” 

Erik is looking at him so intently that Charles kind of wants to shrink onto the floor. “What’s with the...the hat?” He gestures. 

“Oh,” Charles pulls the hat off of his head. Suddenly, he feels silly. “It’s company mandated. It’s Christmas.” 

“Speaking of,” Erik says. “I have a mandate to kidnap you for Christmas. Mom says I’m not allowed to take no for an answer.” 

“Um.” 

“That’s sexy,” says Alex. “Go for it, I mean, it’s like five o’ clock and no one’s here.” 

 

“Mom didn’t exactly say kidnap,” Erik admits, while they’re sitting through traffic again. “But she did say, quote, that she was going to be upset if you couldn’t join us. I did say you were probably working. Not everywhere is shut for Christmas, especially in the city.” 

“How did you know where I worked?” Charles asks. 

“I triangulated it from Logan’s apartment and the building where he works.”

“What, really? How very MI6.” 

“Yes,” Erik holds a straight face for exactly one minute and then shakes his head. “I mean. No. I noticed the logo on some of your bags of coffee. The other night at your place. So I took a guess.” 

“That’s astute of you,” Charles says. “...Have you been by to see Logan today?” 

“I did,” Erik nods. “He’s breathing well? I mean -- I don’t know what else to say.” 

“He’s still unconscious?” 

“From the looks of it,” Erik affirms. “...Sorry.” 

“No, I mean, you shouldn’t be sorry. I’m sorry.” 

Erik offers him a cigarette after that, and Charles is glad to let the rest of the ride pass by in silence. 

 

The house in Scarsdale is crammed to the brim with Lehnsherrs and assorted relations. The various aunts, uncles, and cousins test the very limits of Charles’ recall, but he thinks he muddles through just about okay. There’s also a suspicious amount of mistletoe, given that it is a family holiday and Charles manages to duck whenever someone moves to plant one on him. Though Charles very nearly runs smack into Great-Aunt Marge Lehnsherr, who is eighty-odd and seems entirely too pleased with herself. 

When Charles manages to locate Erik again, who seems to be trying to stay out of sight behind a pile of sufganyiot in the kitchen, Charles is relieved. 

“...Can we go out for a smoke? I’m dizzy dodging all the mistletoe. Also your Aunt Marge terrifies me.” 

Erik holds out his hand grandly and Charles takes it. “Thought you never ask.” 

 

Erik tells him that people will leave them alone about the cigarettes because it is Chanukkah. They stand outside under a cluster of bright lit blue Christmas lights, and they are indeed left alone. Erik always likes it when it’s the holidays proper because it’s several days when he gets some peace. The same can’t be said for his birthday near the end of the summer, that one is a bit hit and miss, though Erik does emphasize that he’s been lucky, the last few years. 

“I can’t imagine anyone getting on your back about smoke,” Charles says. He tries to think back to the first time he’d had a cigarette in front of the Lehnsherrs and suddenly feels slightly guilty. 

“That’s only because you’re showing up only at Christmas. If nothing else, you’ve got great timing.” 

“That right?” 

Erik seems to consider this, and then he brushes it aside. “I’m surprised that you smoke.” 

“Really?” Charles can see how it might be unlike him to partake in a fag, but at the same time, he can understand why how Erik might have come to that conclusion. “To be fair, it was either cocaine or cigarettes. The lesser of two evils, _et cetera_.”

Erik’s eyes go wide. “And...nothing in the middle. Okay, now that’s surprising.”

“In my defense,” Charles adds, feeling more or less bolstered by the flow of nicotine through his lungs. “I hadn’t had a cigarette for months. Maybe you’re a bad influence.” 

“Believe it or not, I have been told that. Though I do miss having someone to smoke with.” 

“I didn’t think you’d lack for company.” 

“Well, I could surprise you.” 

This time, it is Charles’ turn to hold Erik’s gaze until the other man glances away from him again. Then Erik seems to collect himself and adds, “So...what else don’t I know about you?” 

Charles nearly comes out with _well, for starters, I don’t even know your brother,_ but he’s suddenly struck with the reality that it’s kind of a doozy to land right off the bat. Instead, he goes with, “Do you want to see a time I had my photo taken with a funny tie?” 

“With a sell like that,” Erik raises his eyebrows again, “why not?” 

Charles tells himself that he will regret this, but he digs out his phone and thumbs to the appropriate website. “Right, I always have to take a second because I know you’ll laugh.”

Erik just stares, “...That’s you?” 

Charles says, “I was like twenty-five, have a heart.” 

“No, it’s just,” Erik stares again. “Who picked your tie? And isn’t this one of those genius websites? Logan interviewed one of them once. Not you, I’m guessing.” 

“I picked my tie,” Charles admits. “And no, it wasn’t me.” 

“I would have gone with...not a bow tie?” Erik hedges. “Sorry.” 

“No one told me,” Charles sucks deeply on his cigarette. “You wouldn’t believe how unhelpful production was on the day.”

“Production? Oh, wait. I see the video.” 

“Please please don’t click on it,” Charles says, keeping his eyes on his shoes. 

“...Okay. But what were going to tell me?” 

“I was just --” 

Someone’s phone is chirping, and Charles almost winces when Erik holds up Charles’ phone to his ear. He mouths something along the lines of “it’s the hospital.” 

“Yes, sorry, this is Erik Lehnsherr speaking. -- He’s what?” 

 

Charles doesn’t know what he’s expecting, but he and Erik rush to the hospital and walk in on Logan, newly conscious, sipping on a skinny Vanilla latte. Logan grins at them around the rim of the cup, “Hey, E., the nurse brought me this. I think she drank my other ones.” 

“Oh,” Erik glances at Charles.

Logan follows his brother’s gaze and blinks, “...Do I know you from somewhere?” 

Erik says, “Don’t tell me, you have amnesia.” 

“...I do?” 

“Well, what else could it be? This is Charles! He’s --” 

“I was a genetic engineer,” Charles supplies. “I won a grant, but then I burnt out and now I’m make you your coffee in the morning. The story is longer than that, but that's...it, generally. Sort of.” For obvious reasons, Charles can't quite bring himself to look at Erik. 

“Well,” Logan looks between both of them again. “Aren’t I lucky. You sound swell.” 

“Yeah,” Erik says. “You are.” 

And then, Charles will chalk it up to Christmas, more gelt chocolate cookies, and the fact that Edie Lehnsherr makes excellent, mulled cider with rum that he shouldn’t have liked so much. And also the strange feeling of Erik making him feel more himself, more than he has felt in a long time. 

Before he thinks too much about it, Charles grabs Erik by the nape of his neck and kisses him hard on the mouth. The man still tastes like smoke, but Charles thinks he might like to do that again.

Then Charles pulls away, “Sorry. Like I said, a lot’s gone on while you were sleeping.”


End file.
